Surface Book 2: External Monitor Flickering

Anonymous
2018-06-21T02:17:54+00:00

I bought a Surface Book 2 last month.  Yesterday, I started using it with an external monitor (connected to the SB through a HDMI to USB-C adapter). 

The external monitor flickers and disconnects once every 2 minutes, and then returns, only to flicker/disconnect again, repeatedly.  This makes working with an external monitor unbearable.

I see that many people have asked similar question re. the SB, but I could not find a reliable and actionable solution.

Can you please help me?

Thank you.

Surface | Surface Book | Display and screen

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-08-31T16:33:58+00:00

    External screen flicker on Surface Book 2 using USB-C to HDMI adapter.

    I had no issues using my SB 2, USB-C to HDMI adapter, and DELL Ultrasharp 3818DW monitor over the last 6 months or so ... until this morning when the highly annoying frequent flickering started.

    After unsuccessfully trying to fix the problem with a different HDMI cable and monitor I started reading this forum and am happy to report that it helped me FIX my problem. As others have reported before me, the fix is or at least can be simple.

    I shutdown my SB, disconnected all pheripherals, started the SB back up, un-docked the screen, cleaned the screen connections and USB-C port using an air dust blower (for cameras), and re-docked the screen to the keyboard. I then reconnected the monitor and other pheripherals and was very happy to discover the problem was gone and I could get to work--after sharing my experience on this forum.

    Thanks to all  of you that helped me along!

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-09-01T11:51:25+00:00

    I never had any flickering issues the first year of SB2 ownership. I use a Surface Dock. Then it started happening once in a blue moon. Now its happening every other minute.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-09-11T15:46:29+00:00

    Appears to be the same issue I had.  Turned-out to be a bad video controller in the keyboard of my SB.  There are video controllers in both the keyboard and tablet (screen).   Microsoft knows about this problem and should still honor their warranty.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-12-07T13:07:50+00:00

    Thank you so much, I think this was the solution for me. I went completely berserk: nothing worked!! This now seems to do the trick!

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-01-24T19:26:54+00:00

    Not sure if this will be helpful, but I was able to fix this problem by correcting the refresh rate of my secondary monitor. It seems that Window 10 selected the wrong refresh rate. Once on the supported refresh rate of my monitor, the flicker went away.

    Hope this works for others.

    How did you adjust your refresh rate of the secondary monitor?

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